The present invention relates a buckle for safety belts, especially for the waist belt of a life preserver.
Such buckles, which are comprised, for example, of an orifice plate and a tongue plate, with the pins of the tongue plate terminating in a mushroom-shaped head, should be easy to close and to open, which is effected by inserting the pin into or removing it from the orifice of the pertaining plate. The buckle plates themselves are secured to the ends of the belts that are to be fastened, and impart to the entire arrangement such a strength that, for example, the waist belt of a life preserver that is to be used at sea, can at the same time be utilized as a rescue belt for receiving or holding a person that has fallen overboard. In addition to these characteristics, the buckle to a large extent yields to the body movements of the person wearing the safety belt without the belt thereby opening. Unfortunately, the heretoforeknown buckles, with which the orifice in the orifice plate has the shape of a square or rectangle, do not provide the necessary locking reliability. In addition, in order to be able to open and close such a buckle, the orifice and pin plates must be rotated relative to one another in order to be able to introduce or remove the mushroom-shaped head of the pin into or out of the opening of the orifice plate. This manipulation is not only cumbersome, but is also very difficult in a cold and moist environment, such as on the deck of a ship.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a safety belt buckle that is easy to open and to close and that, despite optimum freedom of movement of the belt in the region of the buckle, reliably prevents an unintentional opening of the buckle.